Indianapolis, IN – With active hands, feet and jumping the passing lanes, the Indiana Fever forced the Dallas Wings into 21 turnovers. The gameplan of defensive from the scouting report gave the Fever enough for a win.
“I liked our pace. Even when [Dallas] made one of their shots, we got back into our halfcourt and made them work on defense,” said coach Pokey Chatman, “We never let them get comfortable. We got the ball into our offensive in about 5 to 6 seconds usually and that forced them to run with us. I thought tempo helped us.”
The Fever’s offense had 6 players score in double figures in 84-78 victory for the teams’ fourth of the season.
Natalie Achonwa 13 points, Candice Dupree 12 points, Victoria Vivians 12 points, Kelsey Mitchell 10 points, and Tiffany Mitchell 10 points.
Cappie Pondexter scored a season-high 18 points for the Fever. This was her seven in 10 games with Indiana scoring in double-figures.
The key for Cappie is that she’s such a veteran. The key is having the ball in her hands,” said Chatman, “It’s not necessary for her to score it, but to control it.”
Liz Cambage lead the Wings with 37 points, 9 rebounds for her back to back 30 point games.
But without All Star Skylar Diggins-Smith all the Fever attention went to Cambage.
“She’s a really great player, you can’t just expect to stop her, so our approach was throw bodies at her and make her work harder. One way to get to her is to make her work on the defensive end, too,” said Chatman, “We forced her into seven turnovers which I thought was big. She got her points, but we didn’t let anybody else break out and hurt us.”
The Fever youth is still growing up right before our eyes and this season comes close to an end. They have learned some great lessons from veterans and by playing more and more minutes on the court.
They will take on the New York Liberty Saturday afternoon and go for another victory.